Napalm Death – Smear Campaign Review

Tasked with following up possibly three of the best albums that they made in over fifteen years, Napalm Death endeavored to release essentially more of the same only with a few new ideas as well. Like many Napalm Death fans I was greatly pleased with the renewed energy and intensity that the band had adopted for the fantastic trio of albums ‘Enemy of the Music Business,’ ‘Order of the Leech,’ and especially ‘The Code Is Red… Long Live The Code,’ which were very strong albums that made Napalm Death sound important again after their experimental period.

2006’s Smear Campaign largely follows the Death, Grind and American Hardcore stylistic mixture that made the previous three albums so good; keeping the occasional unexpected Hatebreed style riffs, the blasting over swirling riffs and the general extreme-metal harshness that fans have come to expect.

There is a bit of variety to be had on Smear Campaign; the album has the unique status of featuring lyrics almost solely on the topic of religion, as opposed to the band’s usual mostly political content. Furthermore some of the songs venture into different territory such as the intro ‘Weltschmerz,’ (which is slightly reminiscent of the intros from ‘Scum,’ and ‘From Enslavement’) or unusual ‘In Deference,’ with its guest female vocals, but as a general rule the songs are pretty fast, contain many blastbeats and the songs are often rather short.

Overall, Smear Campaign is a pretty solid Napalm Death album, although stylistically quite similar to the three albums which proceeded it. If this is not a problem, then Smear Campaign will be a welcome addition to your collection, perhaps not the greatest album that they ever released but giving you everything you could want from a modern Napalm Death album nonetheless.